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Editor’s Note: Originally published in December, 2016.
I’m still amazed whenever I see the bumper sticker that reads, “Visualize world peace.” The idea is that if I, and enough other people, create the right mental picture of peace, it will soon come to pass. It’s astounding that...
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Like me, you probably have been disappointed by many books on the Old Testament. The covers look great, the titles sound enticing, and the blurbs appear exciting. But one chapter in and you begin to flag. They are so boring, so academic, so impractical, and so suitable for your large pile of "read-one-chapter" books.
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It is true enough that the church is worldly. Like the world's younger brother we follow a few steps behind the spirit of the age, mimicking its swagger. That truth, however, ought not cause us to miss another truth- that the world follows the church. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that believers are salt and light, that we act as a preservative to a world swirling in a maelstrom of moral entropy. How easy it is to diminish this truth, to reduce it down to "Be nice, so your neighbor will be nice." The truth is, however, not only that the broader world becomes a less moral place when we behave in less moral ways, but that the connection runs deeper still. When we fail at X, odds are the world will fail at X, spectacularly. And in ways we won't like.
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I'm amazed that Sam Crabtree's Practicing Affirmation has not had much wider "affirmation." As John Piper says in the foreword, it's a "one-of-a-kind book." Do you know any other book that deals with the subject of how to praise others and to do so as a habit of life? No, neither do I; and yet, as Sam demonstrates, it's a topic with lots of Scriptural support and explanation, together with huge consequences for our families, friendships, and fellowships.
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